Publication: Brain activation changes during rsfMRI following brief mindfulness exercise: An fMRI study
Date
2022
Authors
Manimaran, Salini
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Abstract
Introduction: Mindfulness is a practice involved in the volitional shifting of attention from the present moment to sensations. In the current study, the researcher is interested in performing rsfMRI on healthy participants to explore brain activation changes. Objectives: The study aims to measure the changes in brain activation during rsfMRI before and after the brief mindfulness exercise and brief audiobook listening. Besides, to also determine the relationship between participants’ mindfulness traits with the changes in brain activation after the brief mindfulness exercise and brief audiobook listening. Methodology: Six healthy participants, age ranged from 20 to 32 years old (M= 23.33; SD= 4.309) were recruited through advertisement at Universiti Sains Malaysia. The research design of this study is quasi-experimental design. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neurotechnology tool is used to identify brain activations. An equal number of subjects were divided into the brief audiobook group (control) and brief mindfulness group (experimental). Upon screening process, a set of questionnaires consisting of the demographics, Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q), Edinburgh Handedness Inventory-Short Version (EHI), Malay Mindfulness Awareness and Attention Scales (MMAAS) and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - Expanded Form (PANAS-X) were used. Results: For MMAAS, participants in the brief audiobook group showed higher mindfulness traits compared to the brief mindfulness group. In the control group, higher activated brain activations were observed in the right and left angular gyrus, right precuneus, left middle temporal gyrus and left middle frontal gyrus. In a brief mindfulness exercise, increased activations were found in the left precuneus, right and left superior frontal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus and left superior medial frontal gyrus. No significant correlation between MMAAS and blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals, which is the percent signal change is observed in the audiobook group, and, a significant correlation in the right angular gyrus and anticorrelation in the right middle temporal gyrus were seen in the mindfulness group. Conclusion: These findings suggest that a larger sample size is needed to increase the margin of error. The brief mindfulness group showed significant activations in the right angular gyrus and right middle temporal gyrus focusing on the default mode network (DMN) based on group fixed-effect analysis (FFX). This paves the way to conjoint other resting state networks into DMN in future research to better explore the brain activations changes in DMN in mindfulness studies.
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Keywords
Mindfulness , rsfMRI